Frithegod, (flourished circa (c.) 950 to c. 958) was a poet and clergyman in the mid 10th-century who served Oda of Canterbury, an Archbishop of Canterbury. As a non-native of England, he came to Canterbury and entered Oda's service as a teacher and scholar. After Oda's death he likely returned to the continent. His most influential writing was a poem on the life of Wilfrid, an 8th-century bishop and saint, named Breviloquium Vitae Wilfridi. Several manuscripts of this poem survive, as well as a few other of Frithegod's poems. He was also known for the complexity of his writings, with one historian even calling them "damnably difficult". Life Frithegod was probably a native of France, as his name is obviously not Anglo-Saxon, and was probably an attempt to Anglicize the Frankish name Fredegaud. He may have originated near La Chaise-Dieu in Aquitaine, as he seems to have returned there late in his life, but this is just a theory with no solid proof. We do not know when he entered the clergy, or when he was ordained a deacon, just the fact that he held that office. It is not clear when he met Oda. It may have been in 936, when Oda visited France. He went to Canterbury after meeting Oda, where he served Oda as one of the teachers of Oda's nephew Oswald of Worcester. He also wrote poems while at Canterbury. After Oda's death in 958 Frithegod probably returned to the continent and went to the canonry of Brioude in Auvergne. Writings Breviloquium Frithegod is generally known for his Latin poem Breviloquium Vitae Wilfridi, a hexameter work based on Stephen of Ripon's prose Life of St Wilfrid. The subject of both Frithegod and Stephen's works was Wilfrid, a late 7th and early 8th-century bishop and saint. Oda ordered the Breviloquium to commemorate Oda's securing of Wilfrid's relics around 950. Preceding the poem is a prose description of the actual acquisition, supposedly written by Oda, but more probably, on the basis of the writing style, written by Frithegod. The historian Michael Lapidge describes the Breviloquium as "one of the most brilliantly ingenious – but also damnably difficult – Latin products of Anglo-Saxon England", which "may be dubiously described as the 'masterpiece' of Anglo-Latin hermeneutic style". Another scholar, Rose Graham, characterised his style as "long-winded and pretentious". The Breviloquium is 1400 lines and its meaning is not always clear,